Guest post day-My 1st one ever!!!

Today an awesome book is releasing by my guest blogger, Jennifer Dukes Lee. It is called “It’s All Under Control.” I love this book so much and believe that it can truly help people get out of their busy to get to the best. This is an excerpt from my favorite part of this book. This is a link where you can possibly win one of 50 copies of the book being given away. https://gleam.io/tOdBG/its-all-under-control-50-book-giveaway.

Why We All Need to Move from Busy to Best

The mammogram room. The one place on earth where I feel utterly out of control and, well . . . exposed. If you haven’t had one yet, don’t worry; it’s not so bad. It’s about as pleasant as you would imagine. For the uninitiated, try this to get a similar effect: Strip down in kitchen, open refrigerator door, insert one breast, allow strange woman to slam door on it, hold your breath, die a little inside. Switch sides. Repeat.

I got my yearly mammogram last month, and as usual, a familiar fidgety anxiety rose up in me. It’s not the procedure itself that bothers me the most. It’s the callback.

Every year, a nurse recommends that I return to the office for follow-up testing because my breast tissue is very dense, which makes tumor detection difficult. (I’m a little emotional over the fact that you and I have already become so close that, by paragraph three of this blog post, we can talk openly about breast density.)

Last month, I got another callback and returned for a follow-up ultrasound. The ultrasounds are typically lengthy because my breasts are not only dense but scattered with cysts. Those cysts, on first glance, can look like tumors. As you can imagine, the ultrasound appointment is pretty stressful until they check everything out and give me the all clear.

At my recent appointment, the ultrasound technician remarked about my cystic, tangled breast tissue: “My, my,” she said, waving an ultrasound wand at the screen, “you have very busy breasts.”

Yep. Busy breasts. It’s a thing. Go figure: Even my boobs are busy.

I’ve always been a busy girl. Maybe you can relate. People ask you how you’ve been, and more often than not, your answer is “busy.” You are busy from head to foot—and in my case, a couple of places in between. Busyness is the natural by-product of a responsible woman like you, whom others depend on. You never intended to hop on the hamster wheel, but once you find yourself spinning, you aren’t sure how to get off.

I needed to move from busy, so I could confidently live at my best.

One way that I moved from “busy” to “best” was by taking the advice of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Her advice is found in John 2:5: “Do whatever he tells you.”

She spoke those words in Cana, at a wedding reception.

At the reception, the servants discovered that the wine had run out. This would have been considered a major faux pas in first-century Galilee.

I totally love how Mary responded. She took decisive action, marched up to her son, and delivered the news: “They have no more wine.”

Jesus responded, “Dear woman, that’s not our problem” (John 2:3-4, NLT).

At that point, Mary could have taken matters into her own hands and headed to the market to buy the wine. But because she trusted Jesus, she spun toward the servants and said, “Do whatever he tells you” (verse 5).

Do whatever he tells you. This, my friend, is the original #FixItJesus.

Imagine what our lives would be like if we let go of our lists and did whatever Jesus told us to do.

“Do whatever he tells you.” Ask the Lord every day for your instructions.

“Do whatever he tells you.” Say yes to the invitation to partner with him.

“Do whatever he tells you.” No matter the task, the assignment, the deadline. Ask him to guide you, and then obey his commands.

“Do whatever he tells you.” Become so intimately familiar with the voice of Jesus that you can recognize it. Then say yes to the things he’s asking you to do.

Do whatever he tells you.

We need those five words to guide our daily decisions. The world is a buffet of choices: which college, which church, which job, which friends. That’s the big stuff of life.

But think of all the seemingly little decisions you make every day: which work tasks to undertake, which direction to go, which doctor to choose.

It can all feel terribly overwhelming, and I have so often been tempted to make choices that suit my interests rather than God’s.

I have spent too much time putting Jesus on my to-do list and calling it good. Let’s ask for his list instead. Let’s move from busy to best.

BIO: Jennifer Dukes Lee is the wife of an Iowa farmer, mom to two girls, and an author. She loves queso and singing too loudly to songs with great harmony. Once upon a time, she didn’t believe in Jesus. Now, He’s her CEO. Jennifer’s newest book, It’s All Under Control, and a companion Bible study, are releasing today! This is a book for every woman who is hanging on tight and trying to get each day right―yet finding that life often feels out of control and chaotic.

Adapted from It’s All under Control: A Journey of Letting Go, Hanging On, and Finding a Peace You Almost Forgot Was Possible by Jennifer Dukes Lee, releasing this fall from Tyndale House Publishers.